Friday Five

The Week

This is the way a week should start. You leave Washington, DC on Saturday morning and land in Las Vegas later that night to be greeted by friends and whisked off to the Hofbrauhaus. Abram and I had planned a trip to Vegas the week (as it so happened) after I was in DC. We also managed to convince Donna, Richard and Karin to head out with us for a night at the Hofbrauhaus. Needless to say that kicked off the week perfectly.

Abram and I were left alone without adult supervision for the next two nights in Vegas and managed to stay out of trouble – most of the time anyway. During our stay we had dinner at Lawry’s Prime Rib (highlighted below) and saw Penn & Teller. If you’ve never seen them you owe it to yourself to take in a showing. If you’ve seen them then you should see them again – their show is in a constant state of flux. We also visited one of our favorite places, Casa Fuenta, which is one of the few (only?) cigar bars left on The Strip.

Seeing as how Abram had traveled this far, it only seemed fair that he venture the rest of the way out to San Diego. He’s managed to spend the time catching up with friends, and I’ve spend the time avoiding work (with varying degrees of success).

The Restaurant

As I mentioned above Abram and I, on our traditional Suit Night, decided to visit Lawry’s Prime Rib. While there may be many places in Vegas you can get “prime rib” for $10, I can guarantee you the quality and service doesn’t hold a candle to a dinner at Lawry’s.

The first thing that strikes you when you walk in is the feel of the place. It looks like it was transported in from the 1940’s. We arrived very early for our reservation hoping to be seated earlier, alas to no avail. However, we were directed to the lounge area to enjoy a predinner cocktail. (Bonus points to anyone who can guess what I ordered.)

Upon being seated we were introduced to our server, Ms. Backman.^[1] Not Susan, or Stephanie, or Alice. Her name was Ms. Backman.

Ms. Backman introduced us to the menu and let us know we could choose our cut of prime rib when the carver wheeled the roaster around to our table. We started off with some shrimp cocktail which was good. The one issue I did have with it was the cocktail sauce didn’t have enough horseradish, ironically enough.

After finishing our appetizer, Ms. Backman came back to prepare our spinning salad and deliver our wine (bottle of J Lohr cab). Shortly after the salads Ms. Backman came back to introduce us to Juan, our carver. He opened up the roaster to present us with a three skewers of meat, mashed potatoes and other sides if you were interested. We both went with the The "Diamond Jim Brady" Cut, which includes the bone. It was served with mashed potatoes and doused with au jus, with horseradish (creamed and straight) on the side.

The meat was unbelievably flavorful and tender. It certainly didn’t need any horseradish, but as I love horseradish I couldn’t resist. The mashed potatoes were of course perfect (you have to work hard to mess up mashed potatoes), and the gravy awesome.

Trust me – resist the urge to visit a $10 buffet to get your prime rib. You get what you pay for, and this place is worth the extra money.

The Travel Note

There’s a long list of things I’ve left on planes. You can now add a Zune to that list. Fortunately a flight attendant did find it and it’s on it’s way back here.

The Five

In honor of Vegas, here’s a list of five of my favorite things in Vegas. This is not an exclusive list, and this is in no order.

1. The Art of Shaving – If you’ve never experienced a hot shave you owe it to yourself to indulge in this little bit of manly pampering.
2. Casa Fuenta – It’s in Caesar’s, so the prices are a bit high. But as I mentioned before it’s about the only cigar bar left on The Strip.
3. Penn & Teller – Still the best show in Vegas.
4. Mon Ami Gabi – French steakhouse across the street from Bellagio inside of Paris. If you sit outside you’ll overlook the hustle/bustle of The Strip and the Bellagio fountains.
5. Hofbrauhaus – I don’t know how many times we’ve been there, but we’ve never had a bad time there.

^[1] If they were going to be truly period accurate, however – she would be Mrs. or Miss, rather than Ms. I’m just saying...